“And you think Lee is in league with the NSA?”
“Only with one particular person there. No point in casting aspersions on the entire agency,” Michaels said. “It seems that Mr. Lee and Mr. George have history about which they have not been entirely forthcoming, though this is still circumstantial evidence.”
“I’ll get harder stuff eventually,” Jay said. “Oops, speaking of which—” He tapped keys on his flatscreen. “Okay, here’s what the Sherlock searchbot has to say about my query…”
Jay frowned at the flatscreen.
“You want to let us in on it, Jay?”
“Huh? Oh, sorry.” Jay tapped a key.
The flatscreen’s vox began reading aloud in a smoky, sexy woman’s voice:
“Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello, teen singing and television idols from the late 1950s and early 1960s, first appeared together in the low-budget movie Beach Party, from American International Pictures, 1963, co-starring Robert Cummings, Dorothy Malone, and Harvey Lembeck, and featuring musical roles by Dick Dale and the Del-Tones, and Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys. The movie was the first of several in the chaste surf-and-sand genre, which was to remain viable and popular for the next two years.
“Avalon and Funicello were paired in several additional surf movies, including a distant sequel, Back to the Beach, Paramount Pictures, 1987, also starring Lori Loughlin, Tommy Hinkley, and Connie Stevens.”
The computer’s voice went silent, and the three men looked at each other.
Michaels said, “The stars of fifty-year-old teenybopper movies? Fine. Who are their grandchildren?”
Jay shook his head. “I’m cross-checking here, but it does not appear that the two had any off-screen relationship that would have resulted in children together. They were both married to other people.”
“Not having children would make it hard to have grandchildren, wouldn’t it?” Howard observed.
Michaels said, “Maybe we aren’t talking about literal grandchildren. Maybe movie grandchildren?”
Jay tapped away at the keyboard. A moment passed. “Nope, nothing that fits. Nobody ever did another beach movie with the actors who played their children in the’ 87 picture.”
“Maybe the message is speaking metaphorically?” Howard said.
Jay looked at him.
Howard said, “Anybody make any similar kind of pictures recently? Celluloid grandchildren, so to speak, of the originals?”
Jay smiled. “Well, film isn’t made out of celluloid anymore, but that’s pretty good, General. Let me see… Okay, here we are, under Beach Movies, there are several, hmm…ah. I think I found it!”
A few seconds passed while Jay read to himself.
“Jay?”
“Sorry, boss.”
The flatscreen’s vox said, “Surf Daze, an homage to the surf movies of the early 1960s, Fox Pictures, 2004, starring Larry Wright, Mae Jean Kent, and George Harris Zeigler. Set in Malibu in 1965, Surf Daze chronicles the adventures of—”
“Stop,” Michaels said.
Jay paused the recitation. “What?”
Howard beat him to it. He said, “George Harris Zeigler.”
Jay nodded. “Oh, yeah. The Zee-ster.”
“The recently departed Zee-ster,” Michaels said.
Jay said, “This was, um, seven years ago. Before he hit it big. He’d have been about, what? Twenty-four or — five then. Thing is, where he’s gone, I don’t think he’d be telling us anything useful.”
“This is too much of a coincidence. This dope dealer is pulling our chain. We need to talk to the other actors.”
“You gonna turn it over to the regular feebs?”
Michaels took a deep breath and let it out. “No. I think maybe we ought to go check this out ourselves.”
“Not in our charter,” Howard said.
“The current waters are very murky,” Michaels said. “Given the capabilities of the DEA and NSA, I’m not altogether sure just who we can trust. Sure, the FBI are our guys, and they love us — in theory, anyway — but we can’t cover any leaks on their part. We don’t want to be behind the eight ball on this, do we?”
“No need to convince me, Commander,” Howard said, smiling. “I’m going senile from boredom in my office. The drug raid was the most interesting thing that’s happened in three months. I’m game.”
“Me, too,” Jay said.
“I thought after your last adventure in the field you’d want to avoid it,” Michaels said.
“I was alone then,” Jay said, “and dealing with a militant gun dealer. With the general here and you, I’d feel secure enough to interview a drop-dead gorgeous movie star. Did you see Mae Jean in Scream, Baby, Scream?”
“I must have missed that one,” Michaels said.
“Me, too,” Howard said.
“I’m telling you, she’s got lungs could raise the dead, aurally and, um, visually. One of the great on-screen screamers of all time, right up there with Jamie Lee. And did I mention she was drop-dead gorgeous?”
“I thought you had a pretty intense relationship going, Jay?”
“That’s true, boss, but that doesn’t mean I’m gonna do anything. I can look, can’t I?”
Howard and Michaels grinned at each other.
Howard went back and collected his staff car, then headed for home. He didn’t want to take the time to return the rifle right now, but it would be safe enough at his home; safer, in fact, than in the general access parking lot at Quantico. Since they weren’t going to drop everything and rush over to La-La Land in the next few minutes, he’d have time to pack a bag and tell Nadine good-bye. They’d be flying commercial — Commander Michaels did not want to attract any attention by cranking up one of the Net Force jets — and they’d be flying incognito, on open-ended agency tickets, so they wouldn’t have to put any names on a passenger list until just before boarding, and those would be cover noms anyhow.
Given that he’d just been out to the left coast, it might not be as big a thrill for him as it was for Jay Gridley; still, it would get him out and moving, and at this point, anything was better than spending another day doing make-work.
He headed out toward the freeway and the drive back to the city.
Normally, the drive was a straight run up I-95 and into the District, loop around the belt and to the north end of town where he lived.
But after a couple of miles, he spotted what he thought was a tail.
A lot of people drove this stretch of road, and there were scores of cars and trucks heading in the same direction, so there was no way to be sure, but he first saw the car as he changed lanes to pass. A little way farther, when he pulled back over into the right lane, the car did likewise.
Big deal. This was hardly conclusive evidence. But he had been through the standard Net Force surveillance course as part of his in-processing, and something one of the sub-rosa guys from the FBI who’d taught the class had said always stuck with him: “If you think you’re being followed, it is easy to check, and very cheap insurance. If you’re wrong, you might feel a little silly. But if you are right, you might keep yourself from winding up in deep shit. ”
Maybe he was overly cautious, but as a professional military man, Howard had learned long ago that being prepared was not the same as being paranoid. And like the instructor had said, checking it out was easy enough.
There was a little state road running northeast to Manassas not far ahead, and Howard eased over into the exit lane. If the car behind him — looked like a white Neon — kept going, he’d catch the next on-ramp and head on home.
Six cars back, the Neon reached the off-ramp and exited a couple hundred yards behind him.